Spotify, Iggy Pop, and The Return of Alessandro Scarlatti

Well, you know. Sooner or later they make you an offer you just can't refuse. Which is usually how you get roped into paying for something that you no longer use...either because you forgot that you signed up for it or because it's just too much trouble to click a few buttons or because Hope Springs Eternal.  

So with that in mind...thinking "I am much too savvy to fall for that. Or that. Or even that. And when spotify offered me three months of FREE PREMIUM STREAMING, I went for it.

Even though I kind of hate the whole concept of  spotify. Cause, you know...they pay artists virtually nothing, yet they eliminate the purchase of music for a hell of a lot of people. The young people I know don't even buy music anymore. And why would they, when they can have everything they want either for free or for a tiny monthly charge?

But if I like a piece of music, I'm going to buy it, so...I signed up.

One of the first things I listened to was The Acid Lands (Live) which is credited to Opening Performance Orchestra, Bill Laswell, Iggy Pop, and William S. Burroughs. I happened upon it when I was searching for Iggy.

I've been an Iggy Pop fan ever since David Bowie produced The Idiot in 1977 (and it's still one of my favorite albums). And I stuck with Iggy through quite a bit of thick and thin, all the way through 2016's Après before I finally said, "Okay, I've heard it all now. Time to close this door." But I remained aware of his subsequent releases (3 of them), and I thought I'd done a pretty good job of it. Until I signed up for THREE FREE MONTHS of spotify and saw this The Acid Lands. 

So I gave it a spin. So to speak. The first track, "The Acid Lands" clocked in at 24:45. Iggy does a narration, something about Egyptian burial rites. At 6:14 of the "song," Iggy exits and William S. Burroughs steps up to the mike. I tried to hang in there, but by 14 minutes I'd had all I could take and shut it down. But I kept thinking, "What if Iggy comes back?" So I girded up my loins and did a quick scan through the rest of the track. And lo and behold...at 21:40 Iggy returns. So for Iggy completists, I suppose there are about 9 minutes that you'll want to listen to. And there's a slight chance that in jumping forward in increments that I missed some Iggy between 14 and 21:40, but I don't have it in me to go back and check. That's going to have to be your job.

Iggy does not appear on the other two tracks on this album, "The Acid Lands (ambient mix-translation)" (17:07) & "Naming the Seven Souls" (04:34). Still, if you feel that you must own this music, you can either go to Amazon or (my preference) /bandcamp. 

I don't ever want to hear that song again, though.

So to wash that song right out of my har, I also had a listen to Iggy (with someone named Dr. Lonnie Smith) singing a jazzy version of "Sunshine Superman"--one of the many great songs written by Donovan way back when. I love the original of this song. And I love Iggy Pop. But it is a pretty bad combination. The song requires the innocence of Donovan's voice...and Iggy can't touch that.

So I keyed up some Alessandro Scarlatti. Specifically, Alessandro Scarlatti Collection Volume 2, which you cannot buy on lp or cd ANYwhere. (The same goes for Volumes 3, 4, and 5. What's up with that?)

At any rate, listening to the music of Scarlatti helped to soothe my savagely distressed breast. I'll have to come back to this quite a few times, however, as Collection Volume 2 includes 113 songs, and the running time is listed as "about 11 hours." And this from a man who also wrote over 100 operas. Yowza.